On Thursday morning, we were up before the sun to catch an early morning ferry from Fogo Island back over to “mainland” Newfoundland. Even though getting in line for the ferry at 5:15AM wasn’t the most fun thing we did all week, it did give us the chance to see this gorgeous sunrise: After a 45 […]
A Pittman Drinking Song
As we discovered on our visit to Newfoundland last year, there are quite a few Pittmans on the island. On this trip, we learned that a popular Newfoundland drinking song is about a certain Bob Pittman who seems to have a girlfriend in every outport in Placentia Bay. The title of the song is The Ryans and […]
Newfoundland Names
We are using a large, old-fashioned fold-out map to make our way from place to place here in Newfoundland (I’m anti-GPS). Long hours in the car means plenty of time to study the map. One fun thing up here is noticing the unique and quirky place names. Here are some of the more interesting ones […]
Halfway to Ireland
On Friday morning we visited Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America (never mind that it’s on an island). This map I spotted at the site will give you an idea of just how far east we are. We are only 916 miles from Greenland and around 1500 miles from Reykjavik, Iceland. In other words, closer […]
A Night Crossing
On Wednesday night we took the overnight ferry from North Sydney, Nova Scotia to Argentia, Newfoundland aboard the Marine Atlantic ferry Atlantic Vision. The night crossing took us approximately 16 hours. This was Big Red’s 8th trip on a ferry. Not bad for a car that lives in Minnesota! Truth be told, the vessel is […]
Got Chips?
Canadians seem to love their chips. On our drive across the eastern half of the country the past few days, we’ve spotted numerous roadside eateries bearing the name “Chip Shack,” or “Chip Shop,” or some variation thereof. Since Canada still has Queen Elizabeth as their Head of State, they are employing the British meaning of […]